It’s official. PSSA results have been released. And, despite what some community members would like you to believe, the only thing the results tell us is that too much money and time was spent on testing and preparing for tests.

Ever wonder what Pennsylvania spends on tests, test prep materials and data management systems? Do a little research.

Even though you might hear that certain scores mean your school is doing something exceptional or that you’re in the top 100 of some stupid ranking, PSSA scores have almost no relationship to any learning that might have occurred in our schools.

In fact, more time and money spent preparing for PSSAs guarantees that our children were not provided a full curriculum and meaningful teaching and learning experiences.

Research in the past 10 years confirms that our children have actually been taught less about the subjects that really matter. And this same research shows that after 10 years of PSSAs, our children are less prepared for college and/or a career.

Why our education leaders refuse to inform us of this fact still baffles me. They know the truth and they know that spending time on politically — not educationally — motivated testing is time and money wasted.

PSSA results have no relationship to actual learning and any testing expert can predict our schools’ scores before our children take these worthless tests.

Save your child’s experience as a learner, save our schools from being further turned into test-prep factories and empower teachers to teach again. Opt out! http://unitedoptout.com/

Timothy D. Slekar

Tyrone

The writer is an associate professor of teacher education at Penn State Altoona.